The present invention relates to target sensing systems, in general and more particularly to a laser-based target discriminator which performs complicated signal processing tasks for the detection and identification of targets from the sensed laser information of a plurality of laser beam scans of an image scene.
Today, laser-based sensor systems have found wide spread applications as sensing units in both the military and commercial fields. In the military area, laser sensory units have known uses as range finders for weapon delivery enhancement on board a tactical aircraft, for example. Commercially, laser sensory units have known uses as sensory apparatus for robotic equipment in the performance of certain manufacturing tasks. While these laser-based sensor systems are capable of performing their presently required tasks, they may not be as capable of performing pressing greater demands being made with regard to more complex tasks at higher processing speeds.
For example, modern tactical aircraft which employ survivability techniques such as low altitude flying with high speed ingress and egress to and from the target area of interest generally demand weapon delivery on multiple targets on a single pass. In order to achieve this goal, a laser-based target sensor system must be capable of collecting laser information of the scene as the aircraft sweeps across it and processing the information in real time so as to detect and identify targets for weapon delivery during the single pass. Similarly, in a modern conveyor belt assembly line manufacturing process, for example, it is proposed that part selection and/or rejection tasks be performed automatically using laser-based sensors and robotic apparatus controlled in accordance with the sensed laser information. Parts may be removed from the conveyor belt by a robotic arm, for example. Generally, the robotic gripper portion of the arm requires knowledge of the conveyor belt part orientation so as to align its grasp about the part in a predefined manner. Under these constraints, the laser-based sensor system must also be capable of collecting the image information of the conveyor belt area which may be moving at moderate rates and processing the image information in real time to position the robotic arm and associated gripper portion thereof with the proper orientation to grasp and remove the part from the conveyor belt assembly line.
From both of the above application examples, it appears to be of paramount importance to process the sensed information collected by the laser sensor in real time before the aircraft has flown past the target of interest or before the part or parts have moved past the pickup point on the conveyor belt. Needless to say, this is not an easy demand on a laser-based sensor system because of the amount of sensed information being collected, the speed at which the sensed information is being collected and the complexities involved in discriminating desirable images from other portions of the laser scene and in determining the position and orientation of the object represented by the desired image. Nonetheless, the instant disclosure describes a preferred embodiment of a laser-based target discriminator system for performing such tasks with convenience and at relatively low cost by taking advantage of a conventional range measuring and scanning laser beam sensory system and complementing it with electronic apparatus for the real time processing of the scanned, laser sensed information collected thereby.